Daredevil's Black Suit: The Comics Behind It
Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again opens with Matt Murdock already in a repainted suit. The red is covered over in black, with a "DD" emblem on the chest.
Comics readers have seen that costume three times before, going back to 1993. It turns up under the same conditions every time.
Why the Suit Is Black
Charlie Cox has been clear about the in-universe reason. Kingpin is Mayor of New York now, and his Anti-Vigilante Task Force has made Daredevil a wanted man.
Working in the open is off the table. Matt had to vanish into the shadows, and the suit follows. He painted over the damaged red armor from Season 1 and kept the structure underneath.
The red "DD" chest emblem makes its MCU debut here too. Cox said he had to "earn it," and it shows. The logo comes straight from the comics, where it turns up in two of Daredevil's darkest runs.
The Shadowland Connection
The most direct comic source for this look is Shadowland (2010), written by Andy Diggle. Matt takes over the Hand, builds a fortress-prison in Hell's Kitchen, and starts killing his enemies.
He wears black and red with the DD emblem the whole way through, well past his own moral line. It's the same color scheme and the same chest logo Season 2 is drawing on.
The show isn't adapting Shadowland directly. There are no ninja clans here, and no supernatural possession.
The visual language carries over anyway. The black suit means Daredevil is somewhere he shouldn't be. In Born Again, the push comes from Fisk's grip on the city, not an ancient demon.
The Back in Black Run
The other major source is the Charles Soule run that started in 2016, collected as Back in Black. Daredevil wears black for most of it, after his secret identity becomes public.
He works from the shadows and builds a new status quo. Kingpin, by then a political figure himself, works to tear it down.
That parallel runs almost point-for-point with Season 2. Fisk as mayor, Daredevil in black, Hell's Kitchen under siege.
Soule's run is one of the better jumping-on points in recent Daredevil history, and the show is working the same material.
Fall From Grace: The Original Black Armor
To go back further: Daredevil first wore black armor in the 1993 "Fall From Grace" arc, starting in Daredevil #321. His red suit was destroyed in a fight.
The replacement was built to handle the Hand, Venom, and Morbius at once. The look was more tactical and angular, but the idea holds. A darker suit for darker circumstances.
The Frank Miller Shadow
Showrunner Dario Scardapane has said the show goes "a little more street level" once Season 2 closes out the Mayor Fisk story. He calls what comes next "very Frank Miller-esque."
Miller gave the character his street-level noir voice, and he brought the Hand into that world in the first place. Shadowland and Back in Black both build on his run from the late 1970s and 1980s.
The Task Force Has a Comics Source Too
The Anti-Vigilante Task Force has no comics counterpart by that name. The concept does exist, in Chip Zdarsky's Daredevil run from 2019.
There, Mayor Fisk orders the whole NYPD to treat vigilantes as criminals. No single unit, but the same intent: turn the police into a weapon against Daredevil.
The clearest thread between that run and the show is Cole North. In the comics he's an NYPD detective assigned to bring in Daredevil, a cop who believes he's doing right.
The show flips him into one of the AVTF's most brutal members. If you know the comics version, you spend Season 2 watching a different man wear the same name and badge.
Track the Comics on VerseDB
If the season has you wanting to read the source material, all of these runs are in VerseDB. Add them to your pull list, log what you've read, and build your Daredevil reading history.
You're subscribed!
Thanks for joining our newsletter.
About the author
I started VerseDB because I wanted a better tool for myself and the comic community.
New Jersey. 550 issues deep and still buying. X-Men 2099, the Ultimate line, The Walking Dead, and any Captain America run I can get. Lately it's DC's Absolute books. A buddy handed me Berserk and said I had no choice, so that's my first manga. He was right.
Start tracking your collection
Track what you own and follow the series you read.
See what other collectors are picking up.